Faulty SATA to IDE adaptor?

[MatthewLTL]

So since my PC died i put in the 200GB SATA Hard Drive into my MDD. Since i do not have a SATA card for it and i DO have a SATA to IDE adaptor (Which i bought to use my now dead 500GB SATA HDD into a now dead IDE 3.5 enclosure) i had the adaptor laying around. Here's the problem:

It seems the SATA to IDE adaptor is spotty at best in my MDD. When connected to the SATA HDD it may work if i have the HDD cage laying on the CPU heatsink however when i try to put the cage in its mounting points it stops working. The Adaptor has power and reads ther drive (Detected by LEDS on the adaptor) however it will either stop showing the HDD Activity LED after POST or will sit with a flashing question mark on the screen for up to 2 minutes as it reads the HDD and boot fine however more times than not it will NOT even be detected by the mac AT ALL. I have to put the adapter in the drive bays by the CPU as it dont fit on the ones unter the optical drives (The door wont close). So is this a bad IDE drive adapter or just a finickey MDD?

I have a Sil 3512 SATA Card but not sure which mac firmware to use

 

[havokalien]

another drive?

Did you try another drive with it?

MDD are finicky with 2 drives connected to the cable on that side. I had 2 apple branded IDE drives in there and it would do similar things. As soon as I remove 1 Its back to normal.

 

[poiihy]

Sounds like a bad connection. The SATA plug on the adaptor may have broke a solder connection.

 

[MatthewLTL]

I don't have any SATA Drives to try. This 200GB HDD is literally the only unused, WORKING SATA Drive i have. Last time i used this adaptor was on this drive and in the now dead IDE enclosure and it worked fine.

It doesn't matter if the drive is on the ATA100 or ATA66 bus, Same thing. Even with it as the only drive, same problem. I have never had a problem running four HDDs in this thing (its ran four HDDs pretty much since I got it once i bought a second drive cage for it.) With the Drive Cage, I also bought a bigger USB 2 Card (Came with a 2+1 USB 2 card and i replaced it with a Generic 5+1 USB 2 card). I also use the original CD-ROM drive from my eMac after I replaced it with a SuperDrive I got of eBay for a PM G5. I also had to replace the top drive Molex plug for the Optical bays as it was missing from the power cable. It makes it a TIGHT fit with the bay cover on the back of the cage but it works fine.

And no there is no broken solder joints as i checked them all.

I plan to upgrade to ALL SATA. This includes 4 320 or 500GB HDDs and a SATA DVD ROM and DVD Burner drives Does the Sonnet Tempo SATA card boot SATA Optical Drives?

EDIT: The Problem with running 6 drives in this thing is that the USB card also takes a floppy type molex connection and with that many drives and 4 fans data transfers on the USB hangs

EDIT 2: Typing this on the MDD strangest thing... hooking the SATA Drive to the ATA66 Bus with it as the only drive not only works but strangely works with just the slightest press on the connection for the data part of the drive, perhaps i should resolder all the pins for the data part of the connector on the adaptor and see it it works.

Also using the flasher utilites for mac was a nogo with the 3512A SATA Card. Booting my IDE Drive with Leopard sees the SATA card in the System Profiler under PCI Cards however Tiger (ON THE SATA Drive) does not see the SATA card.